What Would Happen If Your Business Is Sale Ready?

No, I’m not saying is your business going to be sold tomorrow. I’m assuming it’s not. I’m asking whether your business is sale ready. Sale ready is when your business could be sold but you’re not interested at this time.

A sale ready business is when you’ve become operationally irrelevant.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you weren’t involved in every decision in your firm? Do you feel burned out from time to time? If the answer to either is yes you’re not operationally irrelevant. You’re just too involved in the day-to-day of your business.

Making your business really valuable means you need to pick your head up and look around. Your real job is to look for and evaluate great opportunities for your firm. You can’t do this when you only have time to think about producing day to day work.

This is especially difficult in a wealth management business. Your clients have come to depend on you. Now, you have to get them to depend on the firm instead.

A sale ready business is one where you have a recurring revenue stream.

If you’ve been in business for over twenty years and every year you start the year off with no business it’s got to be tiring. A business with recurring revenue either has contracts where business is guaranteed for multiple years or has a system for creating new business every year.

The good news is you probably have great recurring revenues in your firm. You can estimate what you’re going to do within a few hundred dollars. Your risk is a market melt down. The best way to solve for this problem is to have margins that can afford a drop in your revenue.

Burn out comes from worrying whether you’re going to have enough business to keep the doors open. Without recurring revenue it’s almost impossible not to have this worry. Figure out how to keep your doors open and have no stress. Its called recurring revenue or owning a wealth management firm.

You have great systems in place.

You might like to rock and roll with new ways of doing things. I can promise you that your employees hate figuring it out. Your employees want to know what they need to do for success. They want to know what they need to be doing to be great at their jobs.

Too often wealth management firms do one off planning. Every client is different. When you have a niche with real expertise you’ll find that you can systematize how every client will be handled. You’ll find that your niche all have similar issues and it’ll become easier for your staff to know what to do.

Look at the best companies in the world. They all have systems and procedures for how to deliver great service. Your experience at Starbucks doesn’t happen by mistake. Starbucks trains and makes sure their employees know what to do. Why don’t you do the same?

You’ve developed a strong niche.

When you tell me that the whole world is your oyster I know that no one knows how to find you. The best privately held businesses know exactly who their customers are and how to serve them.

When you have a strong niche you can service your clients in a cost effective basis. You know what their problems are. You know how to help them take advantage of opportunities. If this isn’t you, ask yourself why you haven’t developed a niche.

When your wealth management firm develops a strong niche you’ll have a great reputation and you’ll service clients more quickly. You and your staff will be able to handle more clients because you’re not reinventing the wheel every time someone walks in the door.

Your measurements are forward looking.

Do you know what your early warnings are for when things go wrong in your firm? Do you know what measurements tell you things are going well? A firm that is sale ready has a dashboard where the owner can see at a glance how their firm is doing.

The numbers that you look at on your profit and loss statement are all historical. They don’t tell you one thing about what’s going to happen in the future. Learn what forward thinking metrics are and use them.

It’s a great place to be.

If you can answer yes to all of the questions above I’ll bet you love your business. You probably have no interest or need to sell your business. You love what you do and you love the people you work with.

If instead you answered lots of questions with no, you’re probably ready to get out of your business tomorrow. Sale ready is not about selling your business. It’s about getting your business to a place where you love what you do.

Here’s the good news. If you don’t think your business is sale ready, recognizing this fact is the first step. Start doing one thing at a time and before you know it, you’ll have created a business others would love to own.

Are you ready to make changes in your business that get rid of burn out, increase your profits and fun? If so, think about having your business be sale ready.

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About Josh

Why would you want to listen to me?

My specialty is working with owners of private businesses. It’s where I have the most interest and can add the most value. If you own a business and are interested in a coaching relationship as well as mentoring, I’m your guy.
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ABOUT JOSH PATRICK

My main focus in life is helping private business owners create a sustainable business that will last past them. I help create great outcomes using life experiences I’ve had during my almost forty years of running and being around my favorite people, private business owners. I’m a student, an entrepreneur and a curious observer of life. Read More